


Burning Up

by Para



Series: A Little Less Than Ordinary [1]
Category: Girl Genius
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-17
Updated: 2017-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-14 12:50:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5744452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Para/pseuds/Para
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Kai had guessed her future, she would have expected normalcy and duty; maybe a marriage to a boy who could inherit her father's shop.</p><p>Duty she got.  Normalcy—well.  That's always been a variable term.</p><p>(OC jager origin story.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Embers

**Author's Note:**

> So originally this was two fics in one, covering both Mircea's and Kai's origins. Except then plotting happened, their stories no longer fit together so neatly, so now this is just Kai and Mircea's [is over here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8037241).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kai grows up, makes some rather odd decisions, and carries fire all the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally posted on tumblr... some months ago. There are minor edits to this version, but just to phrasing, nothing particularly important.

Back in Gyula Kai’s best friend was Ioan, the son of a silversmith. He had been a better son than Kai was a daughter; she spent time in her father’s shop, studying prices and trends and how to lead a customer to buy just one thing more, and she spent time by her mother’s side, learning to sew and cook and mix medicines for the common illnesses her siblings caught. She spent time with her siblings too, of course; teaching them how to write and add and act, ordering them out of whatever mischief they’d started. But she spent no more time there than was necessary.

Ioan loved his father’s forge, and when Kai wasn’t with her family they were usually in it. Ioan watched or helped his father, eyes wide in fascination as the metal changed to match his father’s will, and as he grew he learned how to do the same. He talked about it, usually; as he got older sometimes his father cut him off from sharing details Kai shouldn’t learn. Kai hummed, and nodded, and paid enough attention to respond, and felt her eyes drawn to the fire. She felt nothing tangible, no heat or flame, but nonetheless she watched sparks rise, and felt something burning rising in her breath.

It was strange. She learned that gradually, that other people didn’t gaze at the fire and breath in rhythm with the flames, didn’t feel as if something expanded at the sight of sparks dancing into the sky like her chest every time she inhaled, but never shrunk back down like an exhale, and only grew. She learned to be grateful that she’d assumed it was common; she’d never felt the need to say a word about what she thought everyone felt, and no one knew.

But it was not common. It was strange, and strong; she called it _will_ , for a while, because that was what she found herself thinking when it rose: _I will, I will, I will_ —

It tasted more like threat than promise.

 _I will what_ , she thought sometimes when she was half asleep in the dark. _I will what_?

But what rose felt strange, and powerful, and Kai knew that meant dangerous, so if it held an answer she never let it grow enough to say.

“Storm coming!” her mother, her father, her sisters and brothers, a dozen voices through the years called, cheerful or irritated or worried, and if she was outside Kai always turned to search for the clouds. If the storm was strong enough, the wind would pull at her hair, trying to take it in trade for the scent of water and thunder that it carried, and the burning in Kai would rise to meet it, something vital and unnamed.

A plague caught the town when Kai was thirteen. It was spark-made, but gentle for that: the red fever brought a high fever, a rash, and a slow leak of blood out the eyes. And nausea, vomiting; that was usually what killed, when it did. Half the fever’s victims survived, a few died of the fever, but most of the dead were lost to thirst or hunger, unable to keep anything down for far too long.

Kai caught the plague, and her mother, and brother Markus, all on the same day. It started with a cough, innocuous and easily spread, but half the town had caught it earlier and she knew what it became. As soon as they started coughing, Kai took her mother and Markus to a house whose family had already died.

(No one had given them permission to use it, her mother worried; it wasn’t theirs, the family of the dead might object. Kai didn’t care.)

It took two days for recognizable symptoms of the red fever to begin, and Kai’s mother fretted over Markus until then. He was her eldest living son since Kai’s namesake had died as an infant, and among the six children that lived there was only one other boy, born only two months before and still so vulnerable; was she doomed to lose all her sons to illness? The worrying only made Markus cry. It was almost a relief when the fever began.

Kai’s mother tried; with the fever and rash and blood starting to fall from her eyes she cooked the easiest foods she knew to keep down, but it did no good. The plague was sparkwork; gentle food made no difference, and within a day both Kai’s mother and her brother stopped eating. The vomiting was too painful and impossible to avoid.

Kai burned. She didn’t know what part was fever and what was fire, but she burned, _I will I will I will I will_ , and she kept eating, spent hours drinking water and eating whatever food was there (raw, by the end, as she shook too hard to stand for long, and couldn’t see beyond a haze of red) between vomiting it back up. Her stomach twisted like it was stabbed and her throat felt like it was full of biting ants, and she twisted the fever and the burning together to pull them into herself and thought _I will_.

Kai lived.

Kai had always been used to the burning feeling, but she got used to using it. Chasing her siblings out of mischief wasn’t the same as taking her mother’s place to care for them, and most days she needed to think _I will_ and find a place that was—not precarious, she couldn’t think of the fire as dangerous to herself any more, but unstable, poised on the edge of flaring into actions Kai couldn’t quite determine but suspected she shouldn’t take. She never let it go too far; she took care of her siblings and made the oldest (Alena and Katarine, ten and seven) help take care of the house, and sometimes helped her father with the shop, and when she needed to she pulled the fire up and into her gaze, straightened to her full (average, thirteen-year-old) height with her (slight) frame and thought _I will_ , and the people whose eyes she met backed down. She twisted _I will_ into _I will not let you control me_ , and made the fire smolder in her lungs, but never burn further. It felt tempting, when she used it; she wanted to let it go, just to see what she would do if she didn’t hold it back, but it still felt like it could be dangerous to other people. She adjusted, got used to holding it halfway active, and it began to feel less like a breath and more like her heartbeat, like the flow of blood in her veins that she never could have lived without.

Gyula had probably been invaded once, but it had happened so long ago that no one remembered it. Still, the town belonged to the Heterodynes; there was grumbling, but they were much too near for anything else to be true.

Whether a Heterodyne had created the red fever Kai never knew, but certainly some of the townspeople thought no one else could have, and anger settled in the town as the plague passed. Kai’s father had lost less than many, but he was well known in the town, his shop a center of gossip every time people met and talked in it, and he had been hit hard when the Heterodynes refused to lower Gyula’s tribute despite the loss of population. Kai’s father had always been slow to form grudges, but only fed them once they began; it was no surprise to Kai that when anger became rebellion, her father was at the head of it.

She called him foolish for it, and he called her cold; he said the least she could do for her mother and brother was support those who fought against their murderers. Kai thought of a red haze, of days making herself eat and vomit while her mother and brother lay in bed, of a plague that could be survived, and said nothing. The Heterodynes weren’t known for failing to kill people. But her father held grudges; his mind would not be changed.

The Heterodynes didn’t bother sending anything that could be called an army. A squad of constructs arrived, and Kai led her siblings to a room without windows as soon as she saw them, and sat in front of the door until the shouts and crashes died down. The door she was sitting against banged, once, and she could hear it crack, but Kai snapped "children!" in a higher voice than she'd meant to, and it didn't bang again. She wasn’t surprised when her father never came back, or that most of the shop’s stock had been taken and some of the shelves smashed along with the door.

The next week was funerals and burials, constant, from one to the next to another and fitting in her father’s around all the others Kai had to attend. The constructs hung around—jägermonsters, Kai heard them called—but didn’t do much. They harassed the taverns, the baker, anywhere they could get food, but they’d already taken what they wanted from Kai’s shop, so she only saw them watching from alleys or rooftops as she walked between memorials and errands.

It seemed like their eyes followed her most times that she looked. Maybe it was because she walked straight, not ducking her head like most of the townsfolk did; Kai hadn’t been part of the rebellion after all, and the jägers had gotten into and won fights, but hadn’t killed anyone else since it was put down, so she didn’t think they would. Maybe it was because she’d started wearing a cut-down pair of her father’s pants when she went on errands; she didn’t have the time to keep messing with full skirts, and there wasn’t anyone left to tell her no. Maybe it was because some of the townsfolk had politely, apologetically, started avoiding her; _bad luck_ , they said, to stand too close to a girl that had survived a Heterodyne’s attempt to kill, and with her father’s actions…. Maybe it was just Kai's imagination. She pulled the fire up and into herself regardless, and straightened under the gaze that might or might not be there.

Then the funerals were over, and Kai was standing in a broken shop with not enough stock to sell, and three sisters and a baby brother to care for. She had no family to go to; her mother’s parents had been traders before they settled in Gyula, their relatives much too far away for Kai to reach, and her mother’s siblings long gone back to their family’s original home. Her father’s mother was closer, a minor noble’s wife, but her father’s father was some cavalry officer, and his mother’s husband had banned Kai’s father from the estate as soon as he turned sixteen. Kai didn’t expect her uncle who had inherited would be any more eager to welcome her father’s children.

The shop was lost. It would cost more to fix and restock than Kai had or could get. Alena seemed to have realized, standing beside Kai as they looked over the hastily cleaned up destruction. “How are we going to live now?”

“Go pack,” Kai said.

If it was a decision, it wasn’t a conscious one, but her siblings were scared and lost, and they fell in line without Kai even needing to stare them down. She traded the broken shop for a horse and cart and money, and left Gyula before the jägers did. The Heterodynes were dangerous, but they were less dangerous the closer you were to them. Katarine threw a fit when she realized what town Kai had taken them to, and that set off the rest, but Kai only stopped long enough to make them be quiet before driving up to the gates.

There weren’t even guards, properly; there were soldiers scattered on the walls above, who grinned down at her like the jägers had, like predators excited for the hunt. But there was no one on the ground, no one who said _stop_ or _what is your business here_ , so Kai went right through.

She sold the horse and cart as soon as she found an old, small house she could afford to buy, mostly for the money and only a little bit so that Alena wouldn’t try taking them and leaving with the others. The sun was setting by then, so Kai got them all food from a stand at a nearby road. (The woman running it had the same predatory grin as the soldiers as soon as Kai talked, and lost it as Kai ignored the ways she looked at them.) She took them back to—to the place that would be home, anyway, and got them to sleep, and lay in bed trying to remember what fire looked like, thinking _I will, I will, I will, but how?_

She left Alena in charge in the morning—no one would be allowed out of the house, most likely, but that was fine; Kai didn’t trust those predatory grins. She wore the pants she’d cut down again, braided her hair and twisted it up underneath an old cap of her father’s for the same reason. No need to give anyone anything to grab easily.

The shops she found didn’t need assistants; there was a tailor that did, but Kai’s sewing wasn’t halfway neat enough. There was a wigmaker, who laughed at the idea of an assistant but bought Kai's hair. The money would be enough for a week, if Kai was careful and Mechanicsburg had normal prices. She kept looking.

It was noon when Kai wandered onto a street with barracks all along one side. The shops on the other side didn’t need help any more than the rest of the shops in town, and Kai stared thoughtfully at the barracks. She couldn’t cook or sew or treat wounds well enough to be a cook or tailor or doctor, but—

The first barracks she poked her head into got her glares, sneers, and curt directions to the recruitment office.

Kai saw the gold and medals on the uniform of the man at the desk in the recruitment office, and ignored them. She didn’t know what they meant anyway. She stopped in front of the desk and folded her arms, staring at him and holding onto fire in her mind. “My father died and I’ve got four sisters and brothers to feed. What job’ve you got that’ll pay for that?”

The man didn’t look impressed, but he did look like he was taking her seriously, and that was good enough. “What’re you good at?”

Kai shrugged without unfolding her arms. “My father owned a shop. I can learn.”

He snorted, reached under the desk, and pulled out a piece of paper. “Sign here, then.”

Kai skimmed it, saw _infantry_ , and thought _huh_. Cooking and washing must not pay enough, or maybe he didn’t know how much money could be stretched. She signed.

“Be here at dawn tomorrow,” he said. “And try to bring a weapon, the free ones ain’t much good.”

There was a weapons shop across the street, and the man running it was the owner’s son. He was enthusiastic until Kai spoke, and then condescending; _you think you can keep up with Mechanicsburgers_? he asked. But he helped Kai find a sword he said wouldn’t be too heavy for her to use, and a knife that wasn’t too expensive. (He charged her too much, but only by a little, and she was lost in thought and fire and trying not to let her hands shake, so she let it go.)

Katarine screamed and stormed out of the room when Kai got home. Alena kept yelling for ten minutes while Leni and Viktor cried. Kai waited them out, and spent the afternoon cutting another old pair of her father’s pants down so she could wear them. Skirts would only be even more in the way now.

Joining the Heterodyne army was hard. Kai was used to moving most of the day, but walking around a shop was different from learning to fight in the sun. Her size didn’t help; most of the other new recruits were older, bigger, and stronger, and none of them felt the need to go easy on a new kid from the wrong town.

 _Good_ , Kai thought as sweat dripped in her eyes and metal clashed nearby. _Good, I’ll learn better and faster than **any** of you_.

She had to sleep in the barracks, so she went home in the evening while the rest went out to drink. A few had tried inviting her, once or twice, but when she explained about her siblings they accepted it. Then they tried to go easy on her, or told others to leave the new kid alone a bit, and Kai taunted them until they stopped. _You lookin’ for an excuse to lose_?

Alena was still doing her best to not speak to Kai unless she had to when Kai and the other new recruits were sent out to fight. But they had enough money to eat and she’d seen Katarine talking to a neighbor a few times, so Kai wasn’t very worried. Alena would manage, and if she couldn’t, probably someone would step in until Kai got back. Mechanicsburgers took care of their own people as fiercely as they slaughtered everyone else, Kai had learned, and whether Alena liked it or not Mechanicsburgers were slowly beginning to think of all Kai's siblings as one of their own.

A lot of the recruits died, in the first few battles, or lost limbs and movement. Kai almost did, found herself fighting a construct twice her size with a huge mace and armor for half his skin, dodged and deflected and knew she couldn’t keep it up for long, and—

—and she was far from home, far from her family; what did she care if she was dangerous now? She started laughing, wild, it felt like the fire was burning up all the breath she had, it felt like she was soaring, and the construct was backing away. She lunged at it, grabbed its own armor to pull herself up so she could cut its throat.

It landed on her legs when it fell, but the battle was almost over then anyway. Kai was still giggling and working her legs out from under the body when a Heterodyne soldier in a battle clank came over and lifted it easily. He grinned down at her as she climbed back to her feet, testing them—one ankle hurt, but she bet it would heal on its own, it wasn’t that bad. “New, are ya?”

“Oh, yah.” There was mud all over Kai, almost as much of the construct’s bluish blood and a little of her own from an earlier fight, and she grinned up at the soldier, too breathless and wild to stop. “This’s my first battle.”

He grinned back, predatory, but now it felt like sharing. “Welcome to the Heterodyne army, kid. Go grab a body and take it back, the Lord wants parts to work with.”

Kai did. She dragged three bodies in from the battlefield—a human, and two smaller-than-human constructs; she didn’t know which side any of them had been on, but knew no one would care. She left them in piles with the rest of the material, and all the while she felt like any step would send her flying, or fire erupting beneath her feet.

Kai liked fighting.

She felt a little bad about it, but—

Kai liked fighting a _lot_.

She didn’t stop being the new kid then, or the one from out of town, but in ones and twos and fives people learned it didn’t matter. They didn’t have much choice; out at war Kai couldn’t go home, so she sat around fires and in the beer tents with the rest of them, and if someone ignored her she ignored them, but if someone sniped at her she sniped back until a fight started. (She didn’t win, usually, but she didn’t usually _lose_ either, and that was a win in its own way.) She did make a point of adjusting her accent a little closer to Mechanicsburg; there wasn’t that much difference, anyway.

Kai never really made friends, quite, but before too long there were men she knew well enough to seek out and talk with. Never women; once or twice she caught a glimpse of someone that might have been another woman, but only at a distance, and never anyone she was sure of. It was strange.

Toma was too drunk to realize Cosmin was fishing for ways to flirt with his sister when he shared “yah, she r'ly—r'ly wanted t'be in the army, but I know ’er, I’d catch her.”

“Catch her?” Kai asked.

“Yah! Y'know, if she dis—dish-guysed herself t' get in.”

It was obviously another moment when Kai wasn’t from Mechanicsburg. “Why would she?” Kai hadn’t disguised herself at all and it hadn’t been a problem. Maybe if she’d developed the sort of body that men liked, but she couldn’t think how she could have disguised that anyway….

“Some girls want to fight.” Cosmin shrugged. “’S why there’re lady jägers. But they ain’t supposed to, so if they get caught….” He shuddered tellingly.

“Huh. Really?” Well _that_ could be a problem. Had they actually not noticed that Kai was a girl? She’d been told, sometimes, that she looked like a boy, but this seemed excessive. Was it just a joke?

“What, you thought we’d let girls fight?” Cosmin said. Toma laughed at the comment, drunk and loud.

Kai shrugged. “I didn’t think the Heterodynes would care.” She had, actually; she’d been surprised to be told to fight, but—well. It was the Heterodynes, and it was Mechanicsburg. It wasn’t the strangest thing that had happened. But if they didn’t _know_ ….

“Eh.” Cosmin shrugged. “All the next soldiers have to come from somewhere, don’t they? Can’t have the girls getting killed first.”

That made _far_ more sense than Kai had learned to expect from anything connected to Heterodynes, so she wasn’t really convinced it was the reason. She didn’t need to know why though; it didn’t seem like a joke. She would have to be more careful. Apparently no one had noticed yet, but it didn’t sound like there would be a second chance if someone did.

Kai saw the jägers, but didn’t really interact with them; they were in different units, with only the few humans that demanded to be let into those units and pushed into their tables regularly having much to do with them. Kai was content with that, but jägers were still eye catching; strange colors, strange shapes, often larger and louder than humans, with spikes and claws, scales and fur and feathers. It was hard not to watch them for a moment as they walked by.

A few looked a bit more familiar than others, and Kai watched them absently when they went past. Some she learned to recognize because they stood out—she doubted more than one jäger had two-foot-tall vertical horns and orange skin. But others should have blended in, at least among other jägers, and she wondered.

“Thinkin’ about joinin’ them, Kai?” Ionel asked as she idly watched a gray-green jäger pass.

“Nah. Thinkin’ I might recognize him.”

Ionel didn’t seem to be interested in that option. “I’m gonna join ‘em, soon,” he said as if it were something to brag about.

Kai kept watching as the jäger reached several others, and punched one in the shoulder. “Why?”

“'Cause they’re the best!” Ionel said. “So I’m gonna be one.”

“They are?” The jägers were faster, stronger, fiercer, and harder to kill than any human, but they always seemed disorganized, undisciplined and reckless. Which were traits of the entire army, to a degree, but the jägers took it to an extreme.

“Of course! The Heterodynes only accept the very best to take the brau.”

The best. “Huh.”

Kai watched the gray-green jäger, and thought _those claws might have killed my father_.

She watched the whole group of them, laughing and jostling each other without a thought paid to the rest of the tent or the ring of hopeful, envious eyes around them, and thought _the best_.

She felt like she was on fire in a far better way than was actually possible, embers dancing before her eyes even though they weren’t real, and thought _I will_.


	2. Kindling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jägers are assholes, and Kai does not have the energy for this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why did I decide to write jäger origin stories when I know nothing about anything military and feel no particular desire to learn? I don't know but now I'm regretting it. Basically everything in here is pieced together from a combination of TVTropes, Wikipedia, other fanfic, and pure guesswork, and therefore probably entirely wrong. I am relying on "it's the _Heterodyne_ army and also they're sort of desperate and falling apart by now" to cover some of it, but I'm sure there is plenty that's still just completely wrong. If you notice anything, feel free to correct me
> 
> And With Mercy is now a week late _again_. It is half written, so hopefully writing this will have gotten the jägers to shut up and let me write about someone else for now.
> 
> Warnings: a (background OC) character dies. I don't think it's particularly graphic but there is some mention of what killed him, and description of a nonlethal but kind of gross injury.

By the time they got back to camp, Kai’s feet and shoulders ached more than anything else. A few years ago it would have surprised her; now it was just annoying.

But Ionel was several inches taller and probably twice Kai’s weight, and his leg had been badly cut. Maybe a tendon, or a muscle, or—well, Kai didn’t know medicine. He hadn’t been able to walk on it, anyway; if he hadn’t had someone to lean on he wouldn’t have gotten back, even with it wrapped up tight enough to stop the bleeding.

He let Kai walk him past the first medical tent, and into the second one. Cosmin was close to the entrance of that one, fortunately, both alive and much more peacefully unconscious than he’d been when Kai left. He’d been half delirious then, voice too raw to talk and blood dripping into his eyes and still trying to scream at Kai to go get Toma and Ionel. His face was mostly clean now, head bandaged and a worn sheet stretched up to his shoulders.

The bed beside him was empty, and Ionel sank into it with a grim expression and almost inaudible sigh. Kai rolled her shoulders, which helped the ache a little bit. Ionel turned carefully, and Kai helped lift his leg into the bed. He nodded once it was comfortable, and Kai went to look for a nurse as he lay down.

The nurse she found looked as tired as Kai felt, and as grim as Ionel did. But she stuffed the rest of the roll she’d been eating into her mouth, and walked so quickly that she was already by Ionel’s bed and unwrapping the fabric they’d used to cover his wound by the time Kai reached the tent’s entrance.

Kai hovered for a moment, watching. The nurse’s movements were quick and jerky like a failing clank, and she spoke to Ionel in short, emotionless directions. Ionel obeyed her without much other reaction, gaze sliding between the nurse and Cosmin. Kai waited until she could catch his eye, and tilted her head back toward the outside of the camp. Ionel nodded, and Kai left.

The camp was worn out. The ground was mud or dust, and whoever used to try to keep the tents clean of splashed mud and blood stains had given up months ago. Now the bottom three feet or so of every tent was covered in a layer of mud, and the people were the same; boots and pants covered in mud that no one bothered to really wash out anymore, shirts faded into mottled brownish stains from blood, sweat, and food. It was calmer, at least; it wasn’t just Kai’s squad that had had a bad day, and when she’d first gotten back with Cosmin everything had been frantic, getting the injured and dying to the medical tents and the supplies the nurses would need with them. Most of the panic was over now.

Fires were starting to be lit, almost as numerous as two years ago, but smaller. People still sat around them, still bet, but there wasn’t singing, and no triumphant laughter or gloating whether a bet was won or lost. It was still loud in the camp, of course, there were so many people, but the noise was from horses, clanks, footsteps and the scrape of weapons as they were sharpened. There was talking, but less, and it focused on practical things. Orders given, reports made, news shared. Singing came in short, loud bursts as people tried to start and then trailed off, unless it was funerary. It was all distant, partly because Kai was reaching the opposite edge of the camp, partly because her head felt pressed down under exhaustion and everything felt removed. She should eat when she got back, but after that she could sleep.

“Und where is you going alone?”

Kai twitched and turned; would have jumped and whirled, if she’d had the energy. There was a jäger there, surprisingly short, with long, pale pink fur that swayed in the breeze, and short black horns poking out of it. He had a bow in one hand and a quiver of arrows hanging from his belt, and a politely curious expression as far as she could see under the fur.

Maybe Kai had picked up some sort of delayed effect hallucinogenic poison. “Second bend in Clank Creek.”

“Why?” the jäger-shaped personification of entirely inappropriate romance asked.

“So I can bring Toma back,” Kai said shortly.

It did not deter him at all. “Killed today?”

“Yes.”

“Bad day,” the jäger observed. Kai wondered if he’d stop her if she just walked away. “Why you? Und dis late?”

“Cosmin and Ionel are injured, and I had to bring them back first.” They’d been supposed to make sure that none of the Storm King’s army were able to cross at that point. They’d succeeded, technically.

“You were by yourselves?”

“Is there a _reason_ you’re asking?” Kai demanded.

The jäger shrugged. “Nah.”

Right. Well then. Kai turned back around and continued out of the camp. She even walked a little faster, although the energy burst she got from irritation wore off after about twenty steps.

She got past the edge of the tents and the guards, who should have made her stop and explain why she was leaving, but only glanced over. Well, she’d just been past with Cosmin, back out, and then with Ionel; they probably knew, and the Heterodyne army was not one for formalities when there wasn’t a point.

The cleared area around the camp was just as muddy as the camp itself; it wasn’t until Kai got into the trees that the ground turned into solid dirt, and plants began to cling to it. She ducked under a branch and eyed them, considered kicking one just to direct the frustration somewhere, but didn’t. She didn’t have energy, it would have been a pathetic kick.

Something snapped, Kai spun around—

The pink jäger gave her a bland look, the branch she’d ducked under rustling back to stillness behind him, bow in one hand and an arrow in the other. “You is a little jumpy today, I tink.”

Kai glared at him. “You’re following me.”

“Well, is dangerous out of camp alone.”

“I don’t even _know_ you.” It sounded more like whining than Kai would have liked. She was tired, she didn’t have the energy to deal with jägers with mysterious goals. (Hadn’t someone said jägers could smell out females in the army? Kai wasn’t bleeding now, not that way, but—) Half the people she did know wouldn’t have followed; they were tired too, had their own injured squads to sit by and worry for. No one had energy to take care of anyone more than that.

“Mine name is Aurel,” the jäger said. Kai did not care, and stared at him waiting for a point until he asked, “Yours?”

“Kai.”

“Now I know you,” he said. 

Kai hissed in frustration, turned on the heel of her uninjured leg, and stomped further into the trees. She pretended not to hear him laughing. It was laughing, at least, not scolding about appropriate noises for a human to be making. She was getting used to not hearing those lectures in the last few years, although now no one complained if she swore either, so it had lost its purpose.

Aurel kept following her, but didn’t interfere or speak again. Kai found the tree Ionel had waited against, and spent a minute fumbling before she managed to get his crossbow attached to her belt. They’d both forgotten to pick it up when she’d come back for him, but he’d be annoyed if it was lost.

Toma was a bit further on, still by the river. He didn’t look that bad, actually; he’d just been unlucky. Kai knelt down so she could pull him over her shoulders without looking at his face, staggered back to her feet, and began the walk back to camp. Toma wasn’t heavier than Ionel, but he felt like it.

The guards still didn’t stop Kai on her way back in—because there was a jäger with her, probably. She sighed. One of the guards saluted Toma as they passed.

Corporal Dalca was waiting by the material storage tents. So were minions; two hurried over to Kai, and hauled Toma off her shoulders with far more energetic chatter than she could respond to at that point.

“What’s his name? If he’s worth—”

“—no, look here, the shrapnel—”

“—and brain, yes, the Master won’t be reviving this one, then. Lots of good parts, still—”

And they were gone, taking Toma with them. Kai shoved her hands in her pockets, and tried to devote her attention to keeping her face blank instead of the sullen anger at the minions.

“Jägers,” Aurel said quietly, “is not reused when we die.” Kai didn’t know what to make of it, so she ignored him.

Corporal Dalca’s expression was also neutral when he reached them, but Kai suspected that was because he actually wasn’t bothered. He nodded respectfully to Aurel, and gave Kai a pointed look. “Making new friends, Teufel?”

“We know each other,” Aurel said. Kai hissed through her teeth again.

Corporal Dalca eyed her as if he wasn’t quite sure she was sane, then turned back to Aurel. “Well, I need to get Teufel’s report, the rest of his squad are unconscious and being guarded by medics.” Aurel nodded solemnly. “You’re… welcome to listen in if you’d like, but he may need medics as well.”

“It’s not that bad,” Kai said automatically. She paused as they both eyed her, and looked down at her leg. Almost the entire outside of her right leg was damp from blood below her knee. (So was plenty else, but not from her.) The wound where a small bit of shrapnel had cut by her calf throbbed, but it still wasn’t as bad as her shoulders or feet. “It really isn’t, I’ve just been walking a lot.”

“Can fix that!” Aurel said cheerfully. Before she could answer he jumped over and swung her up into his arms in one movement.

Kai twisted—flailed—something, hit the ground hard, shoulderblades first, threw her weight so she rolled over her head and was back on her feet, facing Aurel but even Corporal Dalca in her sight, legs bent so she could move, a breath sucked in ready to snarl—

Kai froze.

Aurel looked startled, blinking at her with his arms still up as if she were laying in them.

Kai straightened carefully, back to standing normally, and dropped her hands back to her sides. Part of her wondered why she’d had her hands curled into claws instead of going for her sword, but it was probably for the best. She shoved the thought aside. “Don’t… surprise me like that now.”

“Maybe we should get a beer first,” Corporal Dalca said dryly.

Aurel dropped his hands back to his side, grinning. “Und here I was, tinking you is all _calm_.” Kai scowled.

Aurel left to get beer while Kai and Corporal Dalca went back to the medical tent. When they reached it Ionel was sleeping and covered up to his shoulders by a sheet like Cosmin, but the same nurse was there, and not at all willing to accept Kai’s insistence that the leg she’d just been _walking on for hours_ was _probably fine_. Instead as soon as Kai set Ionel’s crossbow by his bed the nurse shoved Kai so hard she stumbled into the edge of the next bed and fell onto it. Kai scowled at her for that, but sat back up and turned so her leg was on the bed, and started working on getting her boot off.

(She was so lucky the wound was low enough to justify not taking off her pants.)

She got the boot off, and her sock out of absentminded habit, then rolled the leg of her pants up above her knee and wiped flakes of dried mud and blood away from the wound. Some stuck to hair or the scab and she had to pull them off; a few spots of the scab came off too, and started bleeding again. The wound… didn’t look great. It was maybe a few centimeters long and not much deeper, but the edges were very red, and a bit swollen. The nurse gave Kai a very unimpressed look, and started washing off the wound and the skin around it with something that stung, but didn’t smell like alcohol. Kai bit her tongue on any sound out of principle and tried to look bored instead.

Aurel arrived with four beers and another jäger (tall, skinny, insect-like eyes, not carrying any weapons; did this one have a better nose?) as the nurse was putting in a set of small, and in Kai’s opinion entirely unnecessary, stitches. He handed one of the beers to Corporal Dalca, and all three made their way over to the bed Kai had been shoved onto.

“You can drink that _after_ I’m done,” the nurse said without looking up as she tied the third stitch. Kai scowled at her, also on principle, but the new jäger obediently placed the last beer on a table out of Kai’s reach.

“So, Teufel,” Corporal Dalca said as the nurse snipped the thread from the stitch, “report.”

Right. Kai ignored the jägers to answer. “We got to the second bend of Clank Creek on time and without trouble. A squad of enemy soldiers tried to cross at roughly ten thirty in the morning and were killed. Cosmin was injured but there was no significant effect on performance so we stayed in place. Around noon another enemy squad approached with a heavily armored clank. About two and a half meters tall, humanoid, probably would have been able to pull its arms and limbs into an armored ball but didn’t try during the fight. We didn’t have anything that could get through the armor, but there was a gap between the neck and body.”

“Ionescu claimed you jumped on the clank.”

Ionel _would_. “I climbed it to stab down the gap around its neck while Ionel and Cosmin shot the soldiers and Toma tried to get behind the clank.” Jumping might have been involved to get on it, but it certainly wasn’t the point. “It exploded. Toma was killed and Cosmin and Ionel were injured.” The nurse poked hard at the wound on Kai’s leg through the bandage she was wrapping around it. Kai glared at her and added, “And me.”

Barely. The front armor had been a single, thick, solid plate; it had been difficult to climb, but when the clank exploded it shielded Kai, threw her into the ground with only bruises and the one small injury where her leg was exposed. Kai’s sword was ruined, a sharp piece of shrapnel hit Toma in the head and killed him, a dull one hit Cosmin and knocked him out of coherence if not awareness, and another sharp one got Ionel’s leg.

Kai was trying very hard not to feel responsible.

“One of de turtle clanks?” the new jäger asked. Kai shrugged. He reached up to hold his hand at the clank’s height. “Dis tall—und de head shape is like a wasp nest? Gold by all the edges?”

“Sounds right,” Kai said.

“Nasty,” the new jäger observed.

“And then you brought them back,” Corporal Dalca said.

Kai nodded, even though it wasn’t really a question. “Cosmin first, because Ionel could still sit up and hold his crossbow.”

Corporal Dalca nodded. “Well done,” he said. It felt empty. “I’ll pass the word on to keep heavier guards there in the future.”

Kai nodded, unsure of how else to respond. He glanced at the jägers as he left, but said nothing.

The jägers elbowed each other, back and forth, which was not actually any more interesting than watching the nurse finish wrapping bandages around Kai’s leg, but didn’t require moving her head. After a few exchanges Aurel sighed dramatically. “Yah, yah, I got to go und give my report. You two have _fun_ ,” he added with a grin that implied far too many things.

Kai glared after him as he left, and tried to guess if it meant anything. Jägers weren’t picky, she’d heard, but why assume—

The nurse didn’t react, anyway, so probably it didn’t mean anything. She secured the end of the last bandage with a pair of metal hooks, and straightened up. “There. Keep it clean, and come back in a week, if you’re lucky we can take the stitches out then.” She waited long enough for Kai to nod, then turned on her heel and left.

Kai ignored the new jäger as she unrolled her pant leg, put her sock and boot back on, and stood up. The soles of her feet felt a bit less sore, even if getting off them for a while had been the only productive part of visiting the medic. She made a point of grabbing the beer as she left.

The new jäger followed, unfortunately. “Aurel says you’re tired,” he observed as they left the medical tent.

“Yes.” Though Kai couldn’t guess why Aurel had felt the need to tell anyone.

“Going to sleep?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Going to eat first.”

“Smart,” he said, and finally left.

Kai did eat, although by the time she got back to her tent and was able to fall asleep she couldn’t have said what it was.

~---~---~---~---~

Two days later Kai was restless already, and very glad when Corporal Dalca found her, Ionel and Cosmin in the medical tent. Cosmin was sleeping, but Ionel was awake and bored enough to help Kai debate where to get a better sword. She’d already found a replacement for hers, but it was a terrible one.

She was much less glad when Corporal Dalca announced, “this squad is being broken up.”

“No way!” Ionel protested immediately. “We can add someone else, we work great together—”

Corporal Dalca cut him off. “You won’t heal at the same time, and Teufel can fight now. And you,” he turned to Kai, “are on a jäger-led squad now. Be at the jägers’ order tent in an hour and they’ll give you further directions.”

Kai blinked, startled, and nodded as Ionel let out an excited whoop. Corporal Dalca left before she could think of a safe way to argue.

Ionel grabbed for her arm, and pulled it as far into the air as he could. Since he was still sitting in bed and she was standing (mostly out of stubbornness, in case the same nurse came back by) that was only a little above her shoulder. “Kai’s fighting with the jägers! That’s practically an invitation.”

“It’s not _that_ close.” Kai tugged on her arm. Ionel tried to lift it into the air again, so she twisted it free.

His excitement was not deterred in the least. “Sure it is, as long as you don’t mess up horribly.”

Or get caught and thrown out of the army. “Maybe I will.”

“You won’t,” Ionel said, and Kai told herself that it was not a challenge, and deliberately messing up to prove Ionel wrong would be a very bad idea. “You haven’t yet.”

Kai stared at him.

“Stabbing things doesn’t usually make them explode,” Ionel pointed out.

Kai shrugged. She couldn’t argue. “I’m going to go find the jägers.”

“Okay, but you better tell me all about it when you’re back,” Ionel said. Kai turned away so he wouldn’t see her smiling. “It’s so _boring_ here, I’m going to go insane if I don’t have something to look forward to.”

“That won’t make much difference,” Kai said as she started toward the exit.

“Yah, you’re funny,” Ionel called after her. “And tell them how awesome I am!”

Kai snorted, and waved as she walked out. “Yah, yah, whatever.”

~---~---~---~---~

Kai’s new squad was six people. Herself, three other humans, a goblin-like jäger (with, in fact, fewer teeth than most jägers had, but they made up for that by being wide and serrated), and Sergeant Sava, the jäger that Aurel had brought with him. He refused to tell anyone his last name, didn’t seem to even own a weapon, and mocked Kai every time she tried to be in any way polite to him.

Four days in Kai ran out of patience, and started addressing him exclusively as Sergeant Elaborate Asshole. He laughed for three minutes, and dragged everyone to the beer tent to celebrate.

They got along a lot better after Kai figured out that was actually the goal. She eventually shortened his new designation to Asshole for the sake of simplicity, but continued not to use anything else.

And no one ever accused her of being female. Whether that was because jägers actually weren’t that good at smelling it or the Heterodynes just didn’t care any more Kai wasn’t sure, but after the first month she relaxed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kai's last name Teufel has no (intended) relation to not-actually-Gil's-father Teufel, it's just that her father was named by his mother's husband, who was very annoyed at the time (and continued to be, really) and therefore decided to be a jerk when naming his wife's son that wasn't his.
> 
> I'm also thinking that typically when someone starts to be looked at for consideration for the jägerbrau, a jäger will be told to go follow them for a bit and make sure they don't secretly hate the Heterodynes or something. It's not really in-depth, but a sort of basic "are they obviously incompatible with jägers? Okay." It also doesn't happen all the time; someone who's been working with jägers to begin with or otherwise is pretty well known to them there's no need to check on. Usually this results in a jäger walking right up to the person and going hi hello cool weapon you have there let's be friends, and getting away with it because no one questions it when jägers apparently act totally on a whim.
> 
> Kai probably does not usually spend nearly this much time worrying about being caught, this was just a particularly bad day.


	3. Spark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is really, really not Kai's day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright so!
> 
> This fic has been edited. First, while this was originally alternating between Kai and Mircea's origin stories, it's now Kai's only and Mircea [has his own](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8037241). The reason for _that_ is that due to plotting, Kai's origin story is now taking place a century earlier than originally planned. The previous two chapters have been edited to reflect this (although really, the only change in what's been posted is that she's now fighting the Ottomans instead of the Storm King). This is entirely the fault of [Adiduck](http://archiveofourown.org/users/book_people/pseuds/adiduck) and her way too entertaining OCs, and you should all go read her fics and punish her for me by leaving nice comments.
> 
> (And yes, I know, I'm posting a new OC chapter while neglecting my other fics, but With Mercy and Legend have both been worked on recently. I just keep getting almost done with a chapter and then realizing it would work _so much better_ if I just went and added another two chapters before it.)
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: injuries happen, plus mentions of/references to torture, suicide and character death.
> 
> Still fighting with the accent in this thing. Probably soon I'll give up and go back and edit everything to full proper Mechanicsburg accent all through, but right now that is Too Much Work.
> 
> Also: credit to [songwithnosoul](http://archiveofourown.org/users/songwithnosoul), who is unofficially but basically betaing everything of mine by now.

Mihail had been gone for half an hour, but it had only taken Bogdan and Asshole five minutes to start—or maybe continue, Kai could never quite tell—some strange dice game that only they seemed to know the rules of. They at least kept quiet, baring teeth and shaking threatening fists at each other as the game went on, but without yelling or actually fighting, which was probably as good as could be expected from jägers trying to let their comrades be sneaky.

Kai waited with Liviu and Simion on the other side of the clearing, keeping an idle eye on their jäger squadmates (and leader, even if Asshole was currently making angry pouty faces like an especially large and insect-like child). Simion had started carving something that looked like it would eventually be an axe handle, Liviu was staring into the trees and occasionally tapping a finger on the ground at bird calls, and Kai worked on polishing a small knife she’d gotten off an Ottoman soldier a few days earlier. Sharpening it would have been more satisfying—and useful—but also louder than she wanted.

She put it away when Bogdan’s oversized, furless cat ears pricked up and he stopped throwing dice at Sava to peer into the trees ahead of him. Liviu focused on the jägers and then the side of the clearing they were both watching too; Simion required an elbow in the ribs to notice, but didn’t even glare at Kai for it.

They were all standing and ready to move when Mihail slipped silently back into the clearing. Kai had never figured out exactly how he did it—she could move quietly, but Mihail didn’t ever even seem to leave footprints behind or rustle a leaf as he went past unless he wanted to.

Once he reached the clearing, however, he dropped down to the ground with a quiet thump and a sigh. “They haven’t moved,” he said as everyone else sat, “but they’ve got reinforcements from somewhere; I saw about fifty humans and twelve clanks. We’re not gonna get ‘em on our own.”

“Maybe if we surprise dem,” Bogdan suggested.

“Ho yah, you’s great at surprising people,” Simion said. “Very sneaky.”

“Hoy, you—”

“Dot is too many,” Asshole said, and they both stopped. He was frowning, irritated, although Kai thought it was probably at not being able to attack immediately rather than at Bogdan and Simion. “We is going to need reinforcements too. Mihail, go back und watch dem in case dey move, und….” His eyes skimmed briefly over Bogdan, Liviu, Kai and Simion, then settled on Kai. “Kai, you is quiet. Go South und find Captain Anton, und tell him we need mebbe twelve more jägers.”

Kai nodded and stood. She let her fingers flick over her weapons as Mihail stood. They were all secure; the small knife she’d gotten from the Ottomans was half hidden at her left beside the sword she’d gotten nearly a year ago, and the long, serrated knife she’d bought in Mechanicsburg at her right. Mihail left, and Kai looked up at the sun. South would be to the right, then….

“I is faster,” Bogdan said.

“If dey find us both of us is gunna need to be here,” Asshole said firmly. “Kai goes.”

“I’ll be fast enough,” Kai promised. Anton and the squads he was leading were supposed to be only about eight kilometers away; not quite close enough that Asshole could have just shouted for him (if alerting the Ottoman soldiers weren’t a concern) but close. If she was lucky, they’d hear her coming and send someone to meet her. Kai brushed her fingers over her sword and knives again, then set off running South.

The forest was dense, and bushes tangled together between the trees. It slowed Kai down; she had to find ways to weave between or duck under them, trying to be quiet, and thorns still caught and tore at her clothes. Irritating; a jäger would have had to weave around the trees, but could have just jumped over the bushes in the way. Of course jägers were better at anything they did, so that wasn’t unusual….

The trees at least weren’t dense enough to block out all light. It was shadowed in the forest, but not so much that it was difficult to see. If anything it was easier; there wasn’t enough light to reflect off of shields and swords and clanks and blind Kai, even if there had been anything for it to reflect off of. Instead there were twisting stems and green leaves, untouched by the nearby battles of the last several years.

And thickets. Kai stopped at yet another and glanced around, but it was large; she didn’t want to change direction as much as she’d need to go around. So under it was. Kai sighed, picked what looked like a rabbit tunnel under the bushes, dropped down onto her stomach and started crawling.

The tunnel wasn’t big enough, and this thicket was full of thorns; halfway through Kai was pretty sure her shoulders were bleeding, and could see that her arms were. Only small scratches, they’d heal in a few days, but it was irritating on principle. Anything catching enough to scratch her was also catching enough to slow her down, and she’d promised to be fast.

The tunnel narrowed right before the thicket ended but Kai shoved through, too frustrated to care. Thorns dragged over the back of her neck and outside of her arms, then down her back, but then they were gone and Kai was out of the thicket.

Kai pushed herself up to her hands and knees and froze. There were boots in front of her, old and dirty but beneath the dirt was embroidery and bits of silver. Someone started clapping.

Kai sat back on her heels, then stood, looking slowly over the man. He looked young except for the scars, had blond hair in a short ponytail and sideburns, as if he were trying to look older. He had a sword by his side and a shield leaning against a tree, and stopped clapping as soon as Kai met his eyes.

Kai said nothing. He stared back, looking bored.

The uniform was poorly made—it almost fit, but Kai’s mother would have tsk’d, shortened the pants and brought in the shoulders before allowing the man to wear it—but it was decorated, and that made Kai hesitate. He was alone, almost certainly; if there were other Ottoman soldiers around they would have come out, tried to make her surrender without fighting. He was bigger than Kai, but not big; wiry and only average height if he was lucky. She would have attacked him already, but—

Those scars; he’d fought a lot, and if not won he’d at least survived. Kai couldn’t recognize Ottoman ranks, but his uniform was fancier than most; he was some sort of officer. And he didn’t seem concerned in the least about being alone with her. Kai stared back and waited.

It had been several minutes when he said, “You's one of the Heterodyne’s soldiers.”

Kai snorted to cover up the surprise. He spoke Romanian well. “There are other armies around here?”

He shrugged, still looking bored. “Doesn’t look like they take great care of you.” His eyes hovered pointedly on the scratches slowly bleeding on her arms.

Kai folded her arms and glared. “Are you going to do anything or should I just kill you now?”

He raised his hands, although the gesture was more mocking than placating. “Makin’ you an offer. You know—help us out a bit, we’ll help you.”

Kai kept staring. “Are you serious?”

“Sure.” He lowered his arms back to his sides. “Makes sense, don’t it? We’ll be better off, and so will you.”

“Until the Heterodynes find out and turn me into an experiment, sure,” Kai said. “No.”

He shrugged. “So you leave before then—you can even come over now, if you wanna be sure. It’s easy, trust me.”

…He was paler than the Ottomans generally were, wasn’t he? Not all of them, but certainly paler than most, and he spoke Romanian very well…. “You switched sides,” Kai accused.

He paused like he hadn’t expected her to realize, then shrugged again. “Sure. So Hy can tell you it’s easy—”

Kai lunged.

She didn’t wait to draw her sword, just rammed him in the gut with her shoulder. He grunted and stumbled back, but didn’t fall like she’d hoped. The sword would be slow, so Kai grabbed for a knife, felt his hand on her shoulder, and swiped at his abdomen as he shoved her away.

She straightened, and had to leap to the side to avoid his lunge, pivot on her heel. He hadn’t bothered to draw his sword either, but also didn’t have a knife; that should give her an advantage—

It didn’t. He moved fast and hit hard; Kai thought she had gotten him, dug the point of the knife into his elbow and slashed across his chest, but they must have been shallow because they didn’t slow him down. He punched her in the chest, the face, the shoulder, and she had to let the blows push her back to avoid falling, until there was a tree behind her. She pushed off of the tree, tried to stab his shoulder; she sliced across the top of it, but it must have been shallow again. She couldn’t go back any further so the next punch to her gut slammed her into the tree, and then he was twisting her wrist so the knife fell onto the ground beside her.

Kai kicked but he didn’t react, tried to punch him but only her left arm was free, and he twisted it aside without any apparent difficulty. He used both her arms to haul her away from the tree and throw her onto the ground on the opposite side from where the knife had fallen. The pressure on her elbows made her yelp.

A foot on her chest pinned her to the ground, and the man stared down at her, unimpressed. “You’s not very good at this, is you?”

Kai glared. She _was_ good, or at least good enough, or had been until now. (Would still have been, if she’d been a jäger already.) She _should_ have been, or at least shouldn’t have lost so easily, but—

But she had. Kai took as deep a breath as she could beneath his foot, and yelled. “Hoy! Asshole! Anton! Get—”

The man’s knee slammed into her stomach with all his weight; Kai gasped, and his hand covered her mouth before she could breathe back in. She choked for a moment, trying to gasp for breath, before she forced herself to breath through her nose. He was glaring down at her, face over hers; she matched it.

“They won’t hear you,” he said.

Kai raised an eyebrow. Only one of them might, but Kai would be surprised if Bogdan couldn’t hear someone yell twice as far away as Anton was supposed to be. His hearing was exceptional even for jägers, but even normal jäger hearing was impressive, and Kai thought she was about halfway to where Anton should be. Most likely they would both hear.

“Well, they won’t get here fast enough to help you,” the man amended.

But they would get here, and if the man wasn’t still here they’d be able to track him, and they _would_ kill him, whoever had heard her. Kai grinned, even though he couldn’t see it, all teeth.

Hm. He couldn’t see, could he? And the idiot was still leaning on her gut, but hadn’t done a thing to her hands. Her sword would still be a bad choice, too noticeable to get out of its sheath and too long to be useful this close. But she still had her shorter knife. Kai kept her eyes on his face and reached, moving her left hand carefully.

He was still watching her, like he was waiting for something. “We can get you out of the war. All you have to do is answer a few questions; the Sultan will reward you well.” Kai slid the dagger out of its sheath, careful to keep her expression blank. “You can have an easy life, out of danger—”

Kai stabbed him. He swore, back curving away from the knife, but Kai felt it hit, felt resistance as the blade sank into his side. His hand pressed harder against her mouth and his knee into her stomach as he grabbed for her hand and the knife and she pulled it out, tried to reach over toward his gut. Slicing it open would be difficult, but—

He caught her wrist instead, and snapped it with one hand while the other muffled Kai’s scream. She barely noticed the knife fall, land on her chest handle first and slide off to the side. Tears burned her eyes and she tried to kick at him but couldn’t do any more than hit him with her knee, which he ignored.

“C’mon, it’d be easy,” he said. Kai glared. “What do you even owe the Heterodynes, anyway? They’s not going to let you go before you get killed. We can give you money, get you away from all of this.”

He lifted his hand so it hovered just above her mouth. Kai sucked in a deep breath and considered biting him, but it wouldn’t actually accomplish anything. “I _swore_.”

His eyebrows pulled together. “Swore?”

“To the Heterodynes. It’s the first thing you have to do to join the army. Remember?” Kai grinned with all her teeth again, even though he still probably couldn’t see it. His eyebrows were climbing up his forehead. “ _I will serve the Heterodyne as he asks of me._ I’m not a _traitor_.”

“That’s just words,” the man said. “They don’t mean anything.” Kai tried to bite him. He pulled his hand out of reach, quickly, and pinned her down by her throat instead, just enough pressure to make her feel it. “You’s an idiot.”

“If no one kept their word nothing would mean anything.” Kai’s gut was starting to twist; she’d run out of options. She was on her back and her wrist was broken and she could only mostly breathe; she was out of knives and had already tried that trick anyway. There wasn’t anything left for her to do with even a small chance of stopping him from killing her.

It was kind of weird that he hadn’t, actually. The Ottomans must _really_ be desperate for spies. Well that was a good sign for the Heterodynes….

“Hallo!”

The man’s head snapped up. Kai grinned at him. The jägers weren’t here yet, but it would be a few minutes at most.

Assuming they didn’t overshoot the place. “Hoy! Ov—”

The man’s hand pressed down on Kai’s throat, cutting her off. “You’s annoying, isn’t you.” Kai grabbed for his wrist with her right hand; she couldn’t even pry off a single finger. He stared down like he didn’t even notice her trying to get his hand off. “I should kill you.”

No, he should have killed her as soon as he saw her; that would have been the smart thing, instead of starting this ridiculous fight about spies. At least he should have after the first time she tried to kill him. Although he was getting there, even if it was late; Kai’s vision was fading, black creeping in from the edges and white spots in front of her eyes, and the hand she could still use felt clumsy.

“Ve hunt!”

Kai heard the man swear, and a thump that sounded like he’d been tackled, then the sounds of a scuffle, someone thrown into the ground, running feet. She kept trying to breathe, free hand resting lightly on her own neck now that there was nothing to pry off of it. She squeezed her eyes shut for a few seconds, opened them again to mostly decent vision, and tried to sit up.

Ow. That jarred her wrist, but was possible. Kai dropped her hand from her throat to the broken wrist, and tried to guess how to hold it so it would hurt less.

Clawed feet stopped in front of her. “Is you dead?”

Not Asshole or Bogdan, but definitely a jäger, which meant Anton’s squad had been the ones that heard her. “No, just—” Kai gritted her teeth, tried to sound less like she was in pain, keep her voice low. “Broken wrist. I’m fine.”

“Hokay.” The feet retreated. “Hoy, Anton! He’s fine!”

Kai stood up carefully, and looked around. There were almost twenty people that she could see, eight of them jägers. Most were milling around, looking unimpressed.

Kai didn’t know Anton well, but she remembered that he had small horns, and only two of the jägers did. Of those two, one was getting into an argument with another jäger, while the second was dressed much more nicely, and talking to one of the humans. Kai made her way over to him.

Captain Anton turned as soon as she was close, and looked her up and down. Kai ignored the urge to check that her shirt was still lying correctly, and the wrap under it hadn’t slipped or come loose. “Captain Anton?”

The human with him snickered. Anton groaned dramatically. “Dot’s Anton to you. What?”

Kai straightened a little, automatically. “Sergeant Sava says there are more enemies than anticipated and he thinks you might have fun with them too.” Which, in human, meant ‘we need help killing these things.’ “And there’s a traitor nearby.”

Anton looked bewildered. “Dere is?”

“There was a man waiting here. He asked me to spy on the Heterodynes for the Ottomans,” Kai said. Anton nodded along. “He looked and sounded more like a Heterodyne soldier, so I asked if he had betrayed the Heterodynes and joined the Ottomans and he said he had.”

Anton snorted like he was amused. “Hokay den.” He turned to the human near him as Kai frowned. “You take him back to camp, Hy vill go after de traitor.” He raised his voice. “Hoy, Yakov! You get everyone else to Sava, und tell him Hy vill catch up to _help_ soon.”

Anton bounded away, and Kai shook her head as the rest of the jägers and soldiers started moving off in a different direction. Maybe Anton just thought hunting traitors was especially amusing for some reason; jägers were weird.

The one soldier left was older, hair turning gray and lines starting to sink in around his eyes. He eyed Kai, looking just short of irritated. “You coming or not?”

“Yeah, just—” Kai turned, scanned the clearing, found her knives. “Let me grab these.”

Bending down to pick up the knives hurt her wrist again, but the older soldier scooped up the smaller one before Kai could, pulled out a cloth and started wiping it off as he walked out of the clearing. Kai followed, wiping the serrated knife carefully on her pants since she lacked a hand to use a cloth. “You can go with them if you want. It’s just my wrist.”

The man snorted and handed her small knife back. “And if you run into another mysterious traitor on the way?”

Kai shrugged, slid the serrated knife into its sheath, then took the other and put it away. “How many can there be?”

“At least one more than there should,” the man grumbled. Kai nodded.

They didn’t talk on the way back; the man seemed uninterested in talking, and Kai was focused on her wrist. Individual steps didn’t seem to make a difference, but the pain still grew worse as they walked. By the time they got back to the Heterodyne camp she was holding her wrist carefully against her chest, teeth clenched together to keep from making any sound.

The man made a beeline for the beer tent, grumbling about getting a drink since he didn’t get to fight, and Kai went to the nearest medical tent. She had to wait, and when the medics got to her they set and splinted her wrist which hurt worse, but they told her it would heal relatively quickly.

Ionel found her in the beer tent an hour later. Kai was by the edge of the tent, idly watching as people filtered in and out and waiting for her arm to stop hurting.

Ionel dropped a mug of beer onto the table, and himself into the seat across from her, grinning. “Hoy Kai!”

Kai waved lazily with her right hand.

Ionel kept grinning. “What happened to your arm?”

“Broken.” Kai shrugged, then winced. At least she’d only moved the wrist a little. It was probably all in her head, now that the splint was on.

“Ho.” Ionel leaned forward, then sat back down. “How’d you do that?”

Kai rolled her eyes, and didn’t punch him purely because she’d have had to lean all the way over the table, and that would have definitely made her wrist hurt more. “In a fight.”

“You _lost_ a fight?”

“I lose fights all the time.”

“Not _real _fights.” Ionel pushed the beer across the table. “Which is weird, by the way, could you stop that? You’s losing me money.”__

Kai caught the beer before it could spill. “Stop what?”

“Losing!”

“Who loses fights on purpose?”

“I don’t know! You!” Ionel threw both his arms up in the air, like he was appealing to God for an explanation. Kai snickered. “You always win in _real_ fights, but half the time you get in a little scuffle here you lose.”

“Well I lost a real fight, if that makes you feel better.” It didn’t make _Kai_ feel better. It mostly made her wrist hurt.

Ionel rolled his eyes. “Okay, nice to know that’s not impossible.”

“You never lose real fights either.”

Ionel winced. “Well, not often.” He brightened again the next second. “Hoy, did you hear about the purple clank I fought yesterday?”

“No,” Kai said. She’d heard about purple clanks that were as tall as a finger and swarmed like giant ants, clinging with twenty legs and stabbing whoever they clung to with a row of hollow needles that went straight through and poured your blood directly on the ground if you were unlucky enough to get caught. The solution, as she’d heard, had mostly involved crushing them, or throwing them back toward the Ottoman soldiers. The clanks weren’t very good at distinguishing.

“Hokay! So we was ambushing a supply caravan….”

Kai snorted, took a drink, and then propped her chin in her palm and elbow on the table, and started looking for holes in Ionel’s story to pick at. She made sure to twist her grin into a superior and knowing smirk; he’d never let her live it down otherwise. “And you didn’t notice it was full of clanks?”

“They were covered! Anyway we got most of the soldiers fast, I shot at _least_ thirty just stopping them….”

“Ottoman supply trains rarely have more than ten soldiers at the front of the train.”

“Well this was a special one!”

“And you weren’t at all suspicious that they might be transporting something dangerous?”

“I will _throw that mug at you_ , don’t think I won’t!”

It took most of an hour for Ionel to get through his story, first bickering and then loudly talking over everything Kai said. By then the tent had started to fill and Cosmin wandered over. (He also poked holes in Ionel’s story, and they got into a fight. Kai switched her empty beer mug for Cosmin’s nearly full one, and grinned at him when he climbed back into his seat after the scuffle. He yelled, but didn’t try to take it back.)

Lunch was served soon after Cosmin arrived, and then Ionel left for a guard shift, groaning about how bored he’d be as if he wouldn’t spend the entire time picking increasingly improbable things to aim at, then convincing his squadmates to fetch the crossbow bolts back for him.

Cosmin stayed with Kai after Ionel left, and waved over someone from his new squad. They wanted to know what had happened to Kai’s arm, and after hearing the story, started speculating about who the traitor might be, and why he would have dared betray the Heterodyne. Kai shrugged.

“Well next time you meet a traitor, ask him,” Cosmin’s friend Alexi said.

“How many traitors do you think I’ll run into?” Kai asked. “Am I supposed to attract them now?”

“No, you just attract jägers,” Cosmin said.

“You work with the _jägers_?” Alexi demanded.

Alexi was a fan of jägers, it turned out, though he had no intention of becoming one himself—“I like living, thanks,” he told Kai when she asked. But he wanted to hear every detail about all the jägers Kai had met; about Bogdan’s hearing and night vision, Asshole’s sense of smell and the way there seemed to be armor under his skin, the exact length of Aurel’s fur. Kai told him, mostly, about the stupid things they did.

Dinner came and went, and Mihail wandered past with the message that Kai would stay on the squad and they’d be given guard duty until she healed, and an accompanying demand that she heal as quickly as possible so they could do fun things again. (Kai asked him if he meant sitting in a tree and watching the enemies. He squawked in protest. Alexi interrupted to demand what Mihail knew about jägers, and kept him there for over two hours.)

Kai’s wrist never quite stopped hurting the entire time, but between the distractions and the chance to keep it still, it came close at a few points. At first Kai had been drinking as much as she could, hoping that would help, but after Mihail appeared she stopped. She didn’t want a headache the next day on top of everything else. When she finally got back to her tent it was hours after dark, and Kai was almost exhausted enough to not hear paper rustling inside her tent.

There was no light coming out of it; it was thick canvas, although whatever light was inside must still be fairly dim. But the tent was only hers now and when she stopped outside the entrance, uncertain whether she’d actually heard anything, she heard it again, paper being shuffled together or spread out.

Kai’s wrist was broken, and she was exhausted, and no one was supposed to be in her tent. But this was far more likely to be one of her squadmates setting up a prank than an enemy—what would an enemy even want with Kai’s tent? And she didn’t feel like walking even to the next tent over to fetch an uninjured soldier. If it _was_ an enemy, she could always yell; she was surrounded by other tents with sleeping Heterodyne soldiers on every side. Yell and run, she supposed, if the enemy came after her; her wrist would hurt, but her legs weren’t injured at all. And it was still wildly unlikely that a spy had somehow confused Kai’s tent for one belonging to someone that mattered; if she hadn’t run into the traitor today she wouldn’t even have considered the possibility. Kai pulled the flap that covered the entrance aside.

Light spilled out, blindingly bright, and made her wince and step back, squeezing her eyes shut. She opened them the next instant, squinting, and realized the light was only bright as daylight and stopped a finger’s width from the canvas.

There was only one person, seated in the middle of the tent with letters spread around him on the floor. His features weren’t unusual; there were a hundred men and boys in the camp with brown hair that didn’t quite form waves, noses a little too large, limbs beginning to stretch out and freckles spotted over ears and cheekbones. He could probably have passed for Kai’s older brother, if she didn’t happen to know he was a year younger than she was. His clothes were unusual: dark red silk with gold and copper embroidery, his shoulders covered by distorted skulls, tools hanging from the belt that crossed his chest, and things Kai didn’t recognize but assumed must be weapons from the belt around his waist.

It took a second for Kai to stammer out “my lord,” and salute. She hoped the pause could pass for surprise, and that the shadows would hide the way her hand had started to shake.

“Kai Teufel?” Lazarus Heterodyne asked, though Kai couldn’t guess why he needed to. He sounded distracted, like he’d rather be doing something else.

Kai nodded, carefully. “I am.” It wasn’t unheard of for the Heterodynes to show up in the midst of their soldiers and poke their noses into something. In fact it was a common occurrence, to hear about if not to be part of. And Lazarus Heterodyne wasn’t _the_ Heterodyne, that was still his father, but—

“Come in,” Lazarus Heterodyne said. Kai obeyed.

She ducked under the tent’s entrance, right hand falling to carefully cradle the broken wrist again, and carefully picked a clear spot to sit across from the lord Lazarus Heterodyne. She’d burned any letter that called her a girl outright as soon as she received them, but—

Lazarus Heterodyne dropped all but one of the letters he was holding, and held the last out to Kai. Kai took it, and managed to glance down for enough of a second catch the signature, if nothing else. Alina’s, at least a year and a half old, larger and rounder than she signed things now.

“Who is this from?” Lazarus Heterodyne’s voice was still bored.

“Alina,” Kai said, then realized that wasn’t informative. She had to swallow before she could speak again. “My sister.”

Lazarus Heterodyne nodded. He sounded less bored, but Kai couldn’t decipher what he might be feeling instead. “Why would you sister be surprised that you was allowed into our army?”

“I—” _Shit,_ was the only, unhelpful thing her mind offered at first. She let the letter she was holding drop to the floor, and wrapped her hand around the splint on her arm again instead. “I’m—we’re not from Mechanicsburg, originally,” she said. It was too late to sound casual; she let herself choose the words carefully instead, and tried to bring her accent back to Gyula’s. It felt strange in her mouth now, even though it was only slightly different from Mechanicsburg’s. “And I joined the day after we moved.”

“Is that all?” Lazarus Heterodyne asked. His voice was still bored, still idle, still giving Kai no clues to what he wanted.

Kai’s mouth felt dry. “We… moved because my father was killed by jägers. In a rebellion.” Even using the words as an excuse she had to drag them out. It wasn’t a pretty thing to admit to, in this army; she never had before. “In Gyula. There was a plague that killed my mother and brother, and he blamed… sparks, for it.”

“Do you?”

Kai blinked at him. Her heart was still racing, but the unexpected question threw off a little of the panic. “…Well, I caught it,” she said. “And I don’t often hear about the Heterodynes _failing_ to kill anyone you want to.”

Lazarus Heterodyne smiled; pleased and proud, if not friendly. “Indeed. You’ve been working with the jägers, haven’t you?”

“Yes. For A—for Sergeant Sava. For two months, now.”

“You’ve been doing much better than I’d have expected of a girl,” Lazarus Heterodyne said.

It felt like hitting the ground after being thrown off a large clank, even though there was no actual impact. Kai jerked back. “I—” She couldn’t finish, couldn’t think of anything. Her eyes flicked toward the tent entrance, even though she _knew_ trying to run wouldn’t help.

Lazarus Heterodyne watched her, and tsked in disappointment. “You’d make a shit spy, you’s like chalk now.” Kai stared back. “Is you a spark?”

“I. No.” Kai couldn’t begin to guess how that was related, or what Lazarus Heterodyne wanted, or what was going to happen—well, she knew what was going to happen, but her mind shied away from it and back into incoherent panic. Spies? But he’d said she’d be useless for it. Why so many spies today? She shook her head. “I’m not. Not a spark.”

“Is any of you siblings a spark?” Kai shook her head. “You friends?” Kai shook her head again. Lazarus Heterodyne sighed. He sounded frustrated. “Well, then, how _is_ you disguising yourself?”

“I… I wear men’s clothes?” Kai guessed. She wasn’t sure if she couldn’t understand the point of the question because it was a strange one, or because her mind kept circling back to _no no no I don’t want to be—_ and then away from what she didn’t want to imagine. “And—keep my hair short.”

Lazarus Heterodyne frowned. He didn’t look like he believed her. “The jagers can smell when you bleed,” he said. “You surprised them. Usually they already suspect.”

It didn’t matter how she’d been caught, Kai knew. She certainly shouldn’t have expected jägers to lie to Heterodynes for her. (But she’d liked Asshole, liked Bogdan, thought they liked her; hoped they liked her enough not to say anything if they suspected, to protect her from their own side as well as from enemies.) It didn’t matter.

“Teufel,” Lazarus Heterodyne snapped, hand on something hanging from his belt.

Kai flinched like his voice was a cannon, barely kept her hand wrapped around her wrist instead of reaching toward her sword. “I—I’m sorry, my lord, I don’t… I don’t know what you want, from me now.”

Lazarus Heterodyne looked—a little irritated, maybe, or impatient. “How is you disguising yourself? Who else can do it? How does it _work_?”

“I….” Kai scrambled, reached for ideas, something unique, something not obvious. (Something that wouldn’t betray other women.) She couldn’t think of anything. “I don’t know, I… my hair and clothes, I’m not doing anything else.”

She was, sort of, there were a thousand things—excuses not to take her shirt off, justifications for ignoring sex, the right way to react to being called a girl when someone was trying to pick a fight, how to roll around on the ground wrestling with someone without them feeling the difference. But Kai didn’t think that was what Lazarus Heterodyne was asking about, and she wouldn’t tell him unless he did.

“Nothing else.” Lazarus Heterodyne folded his arms, sounded like he couldn’t believe how obvious her lie was. “You _fooled the jägers_ by having _short hair_.”

“I.” Kai shook her head, had to force words past her throat. “I’m not doing anything else.” She gave up, dropped her head to hide the way her eyes were burning, and squeezed them shut. It didn’t matter, now, if he knew she was afraid either. “I… didn’t even mean to join the army, I just… look like a boy, I guess.”

Lazarus Heterodyne’s voice was back to something neutral. “How?”

“I do. I don’t know.” Kai wasn’t sure how to answer, or even what he was asking. “My body, I mean, it’s not very… feminine.” A little more than it had been at fourteen; if she’d gone to the recruitment office now, maybe whoever was running it would have known she was a girl and this wouldn’t have happened. Maybe not. She’d have to see what she looked like with a shirt on and without her chest wrapped up to know. “I never was.”

If she’d just worn a dress that day none of this would have happened. It wasn’t even a funny thought, and Kai had to fight down a giggle. A sob. She wasn’t sure. What was _wrong_ with her? She hadn’t cried since she was eight; half a lifetime ago.

“Hm,” Lazarus Heterodyne said. “Strip.”

“—uh?” Kai raised her head without thinking, stared blankly at him.

Lazarus Heterodyne flicked an impatient hand at her. “You think that’s why no one suspected you? Strip. I want to see.”

“…Yes, my lord.” Kai hadn’t been sure how she’d get undressed with only one hand; had been planning to try, and if it wasn’t easy, not to bother that night. She wouldn’t have been anywhere close to the first person in the army to sleep in their clothes. But she had to figure it out now—it had to be possible, the clothes still worked the same.

She couldn’t. The one hand she could use was shaking and clumsy, and her mind felt numb; she couldn’t think of anything else to do but keep trying to undo all the small buttons on her shirt with one hand. There were—twenty, maybe, she hadn’t counted before, and she only had two loose when Lazarus Heterodyne snapped out an impatient, “will you hurry _up_?”

“I can’t!” Kai felt the blood drain from her face, but couldn’t take the words back, so she scrambled for something to make them better. “My wrist is broken, I—the buttons—I can’t get them to work.”

Lazarus Heterodyne groaned like a put-upon ten year old. It wasn’t funny. “ _Fine_. Stay still.”

Kai froze, the edges of the second button still digging into her fingers.

Lazarus Heterodyne walked forward on his knees, over the letters, and batted her hand away. He’d gotten three buttons undone before Kai realized what he was doing.

She should feel relieved, probably, Kai thought. Grateful. Mostly she felt numb, had to hold herself rigid instead of flinching every time his fingers brushed against her. She did wince when he tugged the shirt off over her broken wrist, muttering about wasted time, but he didn’t seem to notice.

He started humming about the time he told her to stand up, and the sound filled Kai’s head. She wondered idly which of the tiny machines strapped to him was causing the effect, but couldn’t focus enough to begin to guess.

Lazarus Heterodyne took off her sword belt, her knives, her boots, unwrapped her chest, stripped off her shirt and pants and all the rest with impatient hands and distracted humming. Kai realized as she stepped out of the pants on his orders that at least half the army would have gladly died to have him doing this to them, and failed to fight down an entirely inappropriate giggle. He didn’t seem to notice.

The discarded clothes seemed to vanish into the shadows as the light stopped short of them, too; like reality itself ended before it could touch any fabric. Only Kai’s sword still gleamed, slipped a bit out of its sheath where Lazarus Heterodyne had tossed it to the side.

Lazarus Heterodyne stepped back, and it took a second for Kai to realize he was done. She was left standing, naked and lightheaded, more conscious of the splint she was wearing than the clothes she wasn’t, wondering if he noticed any of the scars she suddenly seemed to feel again.

 _The one from the beehive clank—the Ottoman archer—the fanged horse construct—_ Cuts and stabs and burns all healed, and a broken wrist that wasn’t; dozens of times she’d been hurt or almost died for the Heterodynes. _And you—you’re going to—how **dare** you—_

Lazarus Heterodyne hummed off and on as he stared analytically at her. Kai took a deep, shaking breath and tried not to let her hand clench into a fist. It wasn’t anyone’s fault but her own. She should have refused to work with the jägers, admitted the mistake when she realized, asked why the recruiter wanted a girl to fight instead of signing the paper when he handed it to her, but she couldn’t stop thinking _I didn’t mean to lie I didn’t even know it’s not **fair** , how dare you take this out on me!_

Fair didn't matter. Kai had known that for a long time.

Lazarus Heterodyne hummed, and took paper from Kai’s letter box to draw on. He didn’t seem to notice her hands shaking, or the moments when a shiver ran from her shoulders all the way down her spine. Kai took another deep breath and tried to force herself to be calmer. If she could keep quiet she might not get into any worse trouble.

“Turn around.”

Kai obeyed.

It was easier not to be angry when she couldn’t see Lazarus Heterodyne, only the strange glow that the light created and the shadows where it refused to touch the canvas that made the top of the tent. She could feel her breath on her face if she tilted her head back, but the shadows made the canvas look distant, like if she reached up as far as she could she’d never be able to touch it.

“Turn—sideways. And raise you arms.”

Kai did, folded her arms over the top of her head and held onto her elbow with her good hand. If she winced, she didn’t feel it; she felt like a puppet, but wasn’t sure if the puppet was being controlled by her or by Lazarus Heterodyne. She certainly hadn’t had to think about obeying, but he’d had to give the order. Maybe a string of marionettes like Russian dolls; she controlled her body and Lazarus Heterodyne controlled her.

There was no distinct edge between the sides and the top of the tent; it simply sloped up, and at some point became more of a roof than a wall. The side looked the same as the top, strange light and shadows seeming to hold it as far away as a mountain.

The tent probably wouldn’t even be used after she died. There were more tents than soldiers now; this one had been originally meant for two soldiers to share, but in the last two years more soldiers had died than joined the army. Two-person tents had become one-person, and then empty, packed away and leaving empty dirt patches instead.

_And you’ll still kill your own for—for not being as good as a boy might be. You don’t need more parts for experiments; half of what we bring in from the battlefield rots, and there’s fresh every day._

_You **bastards** , I hope the Ottomans run you all the way back to Mechanicsburg, and scorch the walls before they demand a tribute for peace!_

Not inside the walls, though; her sisters and brother were still in there, and the one mercy the Heterodynes had was that no matter what Kai did, her family wouldn’t be thrown in the dungeons with her. They’d lose Kai’s pay, but Alina had found a job—and complained at length for the last two years about having to be polite to Mechanicsburg customers—and the rest could too. They’d manage, Kai hoped, or at least they had a good chance.

She sighed. She didn’t want the Heterodynes to lose either; Ionel and Cosmin would probably die if they did. Mihail and Liviu and Simon definitely would. (Asshole and Bogdan probably wouldn’t, but would be sad, but they’d claimed that they’d be sad if Kai was killed too, once. Only if it was premature, they must have meant.) But if Lazarus Heterodyne and his father could pick up some very painful injuries in the process of winning, Kai wouldn’t mind that.

“Finished. Get dressed.”

Kai found her shirt after a moment, got the sleeves back on, and ignored the buttons. She caught a glimpse of what Lazarus Heterodyne was doing as she tried to figure out which patch of shadow was her pants; he seemed to be filling in shading on drawings of her. Kai couldn’t bring herself to care.

It took several minutes for Kai to find her pants and get them on, but Lazarus Heterodyne was still shading so she sat down again to wait. The quill scratched over the paper and Lazarus Heterodyne’s off and on humming still resonated strangely in Kai’s head; like being drunk or being hungover, she couldn’t quite tell.

…God damn, if she was going to die, did she really have to be _bored_ first? Kai brushed her bangs back from her eyes, dropped her face into her good hand, was ignored entirely—it was like he was trying to tempt her to sneak off. She might even be able to do that, get out of the tent and the camp and past the guards, she could move fast and quietly and she knew where the guards were tonight.

But the jägers would smell her. So would most of the other constructs, really; any one of them could track her scent and find her and bring her back, and if anything would make things worse for her that would be it. She _might_ be able to get to the Ottoman’s army and ask to switch sides, but—

No. She _had_ sworn to fight for the Heterodynes and against their enemies; hiding behind the Ottoman lines might be acceptable, but if they let her through they’d insist she fight for them, and provide information, which wouldn’t be acceptable at all. Besides, she _looked_ like a Heterodyne soldier; they’d probably just shoot her on sight.

That would be faster….

Or maybe they’d want to ask her questions before killing her.

That still might be better than being in a Heterodyne prison, available for experiments. It all depended on the experiment. There was, in theory, the tiny chance of being chosen for an experiment that worked, and left Kai’s mind alive; brain welded to a clank or transplanted into a dragon, or some such thing. What did the current Heterodyne like to do? Had Lazarus Heterodyne broken through yet? Kai was sure she’d heard, but hadn’t care enough to remember.

“Go ask Sergeant Sava tomorrow, he can tell you about becoming a jäger. Or any of them.”

Kai’s head snapped up. “What?”

Lazarus Heterodyne glanced up from folding the papers just long enough to give her an irritated look. “Any of the jägers can tell you what you need to know about becoming one.” When Kai didn't answer he looked up again, frowning. “We don't keep _human_ girls in the army, but you’s useful. Do you want to be a jäger or not?”

“…I do,” Kai managed to say, head spinning all over again. _You could have **started** with that_ , she managed not to say. She was too relieved to really be annoyed.

“Good.” Lazarus Heterodyne stood up, tucking the papers into a pocket, and picked up his lantern. “The jägers will tell you what you need to know.”

Kai scrambled to her feet, ducking to the side of the tent to get out of Lazarus Heterodyne’s way. She only noticed her wrist protesting the move after she’d done it, but still didn’t care. “Yes my lord.” He ignored her, stepping over the clothes and letters, pushed the tent flap out of his way and disappeared.

Kai stared at the flap as it fell back into place, then down at the scattered letters and clothes, no longer just pools of shadow in the dim light of her own, ordinary lantern, sitting at the back of the tent. She knelt down, picked up a letter, folded it, then set it back down.

“I think I need to go get really drunk right now,” Kai told the half of the tent that used to be Toma’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know what Mihail's deal is. Incredibly unusually subtle construct? Proto-smoke knight sort of thing? Just a really talented human? Probably not a construct since he's on a 'to be given jägerbrau' team but I really have no idea.


End file.
